Ann Keaton hung up the phone with a huge weight off her mind. Ann was an excellent White House chief of staff under normal circumstances, and she prided herself on handling crisis situations. Run in a last-minute guest for a fully booked state dinner? No problem. She had changed the guest list, arranged for a place at the table, even taken care of getting the new place card printed. And, when it turned out it would take some time to reach the surprise guest who didn’t even know he was coming, she had arranged to have a tuxedo made, just in case when she finally located him he would not have access to his.
And then Stone Barrington had thrown a monkey wrench into her carefully laid plans by being totally unreachable.
Well, she’d handled the situation, and it had only taken a limousine, a helicopter, a Coast Guard cutter, and an intervention by the New York City commissioner of police. All in all, a pretty good day’s work.
Now, was there anything else?
Oh, yes.
Ann sighed and picked up the phone.
—
PAUL WAGNER KNEW it was Ann. Her calls were important, and he’d assigned her her own special ring tone. He whipped his cell phone out of his pocket and slipped into his loving-boyfriend mode. Ann couldn’t see his face, but it was important to get just the right vocal intonation.
“Hi, sweetheart,” he said.
“Paul. Listen—”
Paul laughed. “Oh, for goodness’ sake. I’ve had dinner reservations for two weeks. Do you know how hard it was to get them?”
“Something came up.”
“It always does.” Paul said it good-naturedly, but with just enough barb in it to keep her talking. “What’s up?”
“It’s silly, but I have to go out with a congressman.”
“You’re kidding.”
“It’s a spur-of-the-moment thing. He got bumped from his table to make room for a late addition of Kate’s.”
“You’ll pardon me, but just who is so all-fired important he’s interfering with our dinner?”
“Stone Barrington.”
Paul put just the right jealous-boyfriend inflection into his voice. “The man you used to be involved with?”
“He’s not coming to see me, he’s coming to see Kate. I have to take care of Congressman Jenkins, from East Podunk.”
“Sweetheart—”
“I’m sorry. I’ll make it up to you. I’m just in a bind.”
Paul kept her on the phone as long as he dared, picking up as many details as possible, most of them silly and inconsequential, like tracking Stone down on the Hudson River and having to get a tux made at the last minute. Paul needed all the information he could get. It had seemed like a cushy job, cozying up to the attractive White House chief of staff, and he was happy to do it, but they weren’t going to keep paying him unless he had something to show for it.
Paul had no idea whether this particular tidbit was worth anything, but evaluating the intel wasn’t his job. His job was passing things along.
Paul punched the number into his cell phone.